


if you want it, it can’t haunt you

by whitchry9



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [6]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Expanded canon scene, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Gunshot Wounds, Loss, M/M, ooh boy this one hurts me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 03:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19190947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Klaus has plans for his future with Dave. They're going to live to be a hundred, and die in each other's arms surrounded by cats and houseplants.He only gets one of those.





	if you want it, it can’t haunt you

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: bleeding out
> 
> From the poem Foxhole by Nathaniel Orion G.K.  
> You can’t summon a ghost. A ghost has to come unbidden, uncalled for, undesired; if you want it, it can’t haunt you.
> 
> the whole poem is beautiful, and so perfect for Klaus and Dave, and you should definitely read it.  
> https://nathanielorion.tumblr.com/post/159609281143/foxhole

“Christ on a cracker, that was a close one, huh Dave?”

Klaus kinda hates that he’s picked up on the expressions from this time, but every time Dave says one, it’s endearing, and every time he says one, Dave looks at him with something in his eyes that might be love.

So Klaus doesn’t mind saying things that he thinks are a bit ridiculous, as long as Dave continues to look at him like that. Klaus would do or say anything to get Dave to look at him like that, a statement that would no doubt worry Dave, if Klaus were to say it out loud, which is why he doesn’t.

 

“Dave?” Klaus says again, hitting him playfully on the shoulder.

 

Dave doesn’t respond.

 

Klaus’s heart sinks, and he’s reaching for him, turning him over and praying to a god he isn’t sure is real that he doesn’t find blood, doesn’t find a wound.

 

Of course he does.

 

It’s gaping, and oozing blood right in the centre of his chest, and Klaus knows that this is it, this is the end of whatever good thing he had. Still, he puts a shaky hand on it, as if he could hold Dave’s body together with sheer force of will.

 

He screams for a medic.

 

“Hey, Dave, look at me. Look at me, okay?”

 

Dave tries, bless him, he does, and it’s another thing that Klaus loves him for. But his eyes are wild and unfocused with pain, and he’s terrified. Klaus has seen enough people die to know that’s what it is.

 

He screams for a medic again, even though he knows there’s no point. They haven’t seen anyone with more extensive medical training than first aid in days. And even then, Klaus knows gunshot wounds. Even if he didn’t before he landed in the middle of Vietnam, the past ten months certainly showed him. He’s seen too many men die of them, and even more of them after death. He knows what wounds will kill, and which ones might be survivable, if the infection doesn’t get to you.

 

Dave doesn’t have one of those wounds.

 

He’s pleading for Dave to look at him, to stay with him, for anything. The words are just spilling out of him like the blood spills out of Dave.

 

He doesn’t want Dave to die here, or die ever, but especially not here, in the heat and the mud and the hell of it all. Klaus wanted him to die in their home, in his arms, when they’re a hundred years old, surrounded by cats and houseplants.

He only gets one of those.

 

Klaus is crying and holding him, and he selfishly wants Dave to say something to him, say anything, just so he could hear his voice one last time, but he also knows that it won’t come out right, wouldn’t be how he wanted to remember his voice.

 

“Please, please... Please stay with me, Dave. Stay with me. No, no, no,” he repeats it over and over as if he’s Allison, as if his words will bring it to truth. 

 

He yells for a medic again, even though there’s no point. Dave isn’t coughing up blood anymore, not choking on it, which could have been a good sign except that it was because he wasn’t breathing.  

 

There’s blood in his mouth, blood everywhere, and Klaus has never hated the colour red this much before. He thought he hated green, the green of this godforsaken jungle that they’ve been swallowed by these past few months, but Klaus would give anything to see the green of Dave’s vest again.

 

“I love you,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know if Dave hears it, but he know Dave has heard it before, heard it when Klaus whispered it to him after sex, upon waking up, when Dave sang his favourite song. He’s said it so many times and in so many ways, and he knows that Dave knows it. But Klaus isn’t saying it for him. He’s saying it for himself. He’s saying it for the last time.

 

He’s sobbing and holding Dave to his chest, can’t think of it as his body, because that means he’s gone, and Klaus doesn’t know how to live in that world, doesn’t want to live in that world.

 

Frankly he’s surprised he doesn’t get shot too. But that would be too kind, wouldn’t it? The universe is cruel and apparently has some plan for him that doesn’t include dying in Vietnam before he’s supposed to be born. Doesn’t include him growing old with Dave.

 

He doesn’t care where the suitcase takes him. Maybe it would take him back, back to where he could save Dave. Maybe it would take him forward, into the apocalypse Five mentioned. Maybe it wouldn’t take him anywhere, maybe it would kill him, erase him from existence.

Anywhere is better than here. Klaus was only in Vietnam for Dave.

 

He clicks the latches open and he’s engulfed in light.

 

He’s on the bus again, maybe a few hours later. Ten months later. A lifetime later, an eternity later.

 

Some time must have passed, because it’s light out now, and there are different people, a different driver. It’s only then that he realizes he’s covered in blood, his hands are filthy with it.

He thinks about washing it off, about having a bath, drowning himself in it. His hands are sticky with what is left of Dave, all that is left of him. God, was he buried? He’s been dead for decades now, minutes and decades.

 

There’s nothing of him left in the world. Nothing except the dogtags around Klaus’s neck and the blood that’s still clinging to his skin, and he’s torn between scraping it off, flake by flake so that death isn’t clinging to him, and never washing it away, because then nothing of Dave would be left.

 

He thinks he’s crying again, or maybe he never really stopped.

 

He’s tired, so tired. So tired that Ben’s appearance exhausts him further, because he will want answers to questions that Klaus can’t give, can’t even form into thoughts yet, because he just lost his love in his arms, is still covered in his blood, and those sorts of things can’t be explained, can only be felt.

 

“Klaus?”

Ben takes in his appearance, his blood soaked hands, the new tattoo, his hair, the lack of wounds that were inflicted by Hazel and Cha Cha’s torture that should still be fresh.

“Klaus, what happened?” he whispers.

 

And Klaus can’t say. He’s sobbing now, for sure, and can’t speak. Wouldn’t even know where to start, because for Ben it had only been hours, not ten long months that were simultaneously the best and worst of his life. The best because of what he found, and the worst because of what he lost. Who he lost.

 

Ben follows him as he stumbles off the bus, not entirely sure where he is, but certain that he had to get off, get somewhere else. He couldn’t be trapped, not anymore.

 

He looks to the briefcase in his arms, that _fucking_ briefcase, and is filled with fury and blinded by his sudden rage. He’s smashing it against the bench in front of him before he realizes what’s happening.

 

Ben is yelling behind him, trying to get him to stop, asking what happened, but Klaus’s vision has narrowed to the briefcase and nothing else.

 

He flings it away from him and screams, and scream, and screams, and the briefcase explodes, and something in Klaus breaks, more than he thought he could break, and he falls to his knees, scratching at the ground like it could swallow him up, like he could dig his own grave and crawl in, like it would make his hands bleed and he could pretend it was his own blood rather than the blood of the one he loved. 

 

And he sobs.

 

 

 


End file.
